Fish breeding toy for cellular telephones

ABSTRACT

A cellular telephone breeding toy includes a memory storing genetic traits of corresponding breedable virtual fish. The memory also stores sets of image templates, there being at least one genetic trait associated with each image template. A keypad is used to select one or more of the virtual fish, and to render the virtual fish according to the genetic traits and the sets of image templates. Lineage of the virtual fish can also be displayed, and the virtual fish can be traded between cellular telephones using communications protocols. Genetic traits of two virtual fish can be combined randomly to generate off-springs.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to toys, and more particularlyto software based-toys for cellular telephones.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

An important aspect of playing with games or toys is the setting, andthe frequency of playing. Stringer et al., in “Who Wants to Play?Beginning Research into Mobile Gaming,” Designing Ubiquitous ComputingGames Workshop, Proc. of UbiCOMP 2001, describe a class of “Games thatGo in the Gaps.” By their definition, these are playing activities thatfit in-between events and activities of our daily lives and are easilystopped and restarted. Opportunities for play may arise while commuting,or waiting for a meal or appointment.

Cellular telephones offer game and toy designers and players uniquechallenges and opportunities. When compared with personal computers(PCs) for playing, cellular telephones have a limited amount memory andprocessing, and the input/output (I/O) are also severely limited, e.g.,a small number of keys and a low resolution display screen, with limitedrendering primitives. Cellular telephones are not designed for playingand quality rendering. Conventional rendering techniques are notapplicable to cellular telephones, particularly if high quality graphicsimages are desired. However, cellular telephones have good communicationcapabilities, including short messaging service (SMS), are portable, andthere are literally hundreds of millions units deployed.

Computer “games” and software “toys” should be distinguished tohighlight different styles of interaction. A game is usually playeduntil an end condition is reached, for example, a player wins or looses,or a score is awarded. In contrast, playing with a toy does not imply ascore or an aim to achieve some end-condition, interaction with a toy isa more creative, ongoing, open-ended experience. Often, toys allow theplayer to enjoy the experience of real-world activities, such as thehobby of fish breeding.

Alien Fish Exchange is a multi-player fish breeding game for wirelessaccess protocol (WAP) cellular telephones. Alien Fish Exchange ismarketed by nGames Ltd, Cambridge, England. In Alien Fish Exchangeplayers compete against each other to produce the most exotic fishpossible. Players gain points by selling these fish to restaurants thatpay based on the rarity of the breed. The emphasis of that game are onthe economics of the fiscal facets of the game, and the fancifulunrealistic, i.e., “alien” representation of the fish.

Maxis, Orinda, Calif., published a virtual fish tank for a PC using aprogram called el-Fish. Maxis also produces other well known simulationprograms such as SimCity, SimAnt, SimLife, and SimEarth. The purpose ofthe el-Fish program is to create simulated aquariums. El-Fish allows theuser to select the tank shape, and bottom and background texture. Thetank can be filled with computer generated plants, rocks, coral, andunderwater statutes, or other underwater debris.

Simulated fish are created using over 800 parameters of behavior, color,size, and shape of the simulated fish. New fish, having variations incolor and shape, are created by “evolution” or “breeding.” Evolutionrecombines the parameters of an individual fish, while breeding combinesthe parameters of two fish in an unnatural way. There is a value foreach parameter that indicates its “strength.” When two fish mate, theiroffspring takes the parameter with the higher value. The weakerparameter may modify the stronger parameter slightly. Breeding a fishwith desired attributes is difficult. For example, breeding two fishwith long fins can result in an offspring with no fins at all. Both ofthese methods can produce mutant fish that can no longer breed orevolve. In a third method, the parameters are manipulated by the user.

The fish generation in el-Fish is not realistic, e.g., fish can be bredaccording the spelling of peoples names, the Gettysburg Address, colorsof candy in a bag of M&Ms, the digits in π, etc, to produce bizarrelooking fish. Fish can also be animated with accompanying music. Fishsimulation requires a powerful PC class processor with a mathco-processor, 8 MB of random access memory, 15 MB of disk storage, and aVGA color monitor, clearly beyond the limited capabilities of a cellulartelephone.

CyberLife Technology markets a line of breeding and nurturing softwarefor children with few set goals called Creatures. Creatures have a largeset of “genes” resulting in a large number of physical and behavioralvariations. Players direct the development of their creatures over timeby interacting with them. Creatures focuses largely on the nurturing ofpets, and not their aesthetics. Like el-Fish, the breeding of Creaturesalso occurs in an unnatural way. When two Creatures mate, each gene oftheir offspring is taken in whole either from their mother or theirfather randomly. Genes do not adhere to the real-world Mendeliangenetics.

Other software with an aesthetic or evolutionary focus include thosedescribed by Sims in “Evolving Virtual Creatures,” Computer Graphics,Siggraph '94 Proceedings, pp.15–22, July 1994, Sims “Evolving 3DMorphology and Behavior by Competition,” “Artificial Life IVProceedings,” Brooks & Maes editors, MIT Press, pp.28–39, 1994, Sims“Artificial Evolution for Computer Graphics,” Computer Graphics,Siggraph '91 Proceedings, pp. 319–328, July 1991, and Todd et al.,“Evolutionary Art and Computers,” New York: Academic Press, 1992.

Danesh et al., in “Geney: Designing a Collaborative Activity for thePalm Handheld Computer,” Proceedings of CHI, Conference on Human Factorsin Computing Systems, April 2001, describe a collaborativeproblem-solving game to help children explore genetics on a handheldcomputing device. Players breed and trade fish and participate in anexperience with both single and multi-player facets. Like a cellulartelephone, a handheld computer also has limited resources and size.Geney is primarily an educational tool, where a small number of genetictraits allow children to quickly grasp a few key evolutionary concepts.Therefore, the physical representation of fish only conveys the geneticcharacteristics, i.e., a simple line-art image with textual descriptionis appropriate to this goal.

Therefore, it is desirable to provide toy software for cellulartelephones. In addition, it is desirable to provide a toy that mimics areal-world hobby, namely the popular Japanese pastime of breedingornamental fish (koi). The toy should incorporate embody a richvisualization that accurately reflects the aesthetically pleasingqualities of koi breeding. In addition, it playing with the toy shouldbe possible to continue for days, months, or even years to fit, likehobbies, gaps in our lives.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention provides a software toy designed for cellular telephones.The toy is based on the popular Japanese pastime of breeding ornamentalfish (koi). The invented toy differs from other breeding-based games andtoys by emulating an existing real-world hobby. In the invention, thecharacters in the toy, “digi-kois,” or virtual fish look like real koi,and the breeding with the toy simulates many of the characteristics ofreal koi genetics.

The toy is geared to the limited storage, processing, and bandwidth ofcellular telephones. First, a genetic makeup and lineage of a digi-koiis represented in a very small number of bits, i.e., less than 70 bits,thereby minimizing data storage, processing, electronic transfer of koigenotypes via two-way short messaging services (SMS). Second, theinvention provides a user interface that designed for the limited inputand output capabilities of cellular telephones.

As an advantage, the visualization of the fish is done by compositingfrom sets of image templates, and not by rendering complex graphicsmodels as in the prior art.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 a is an image of a real-world koi;

FIGS. 1 b–d are images of simulated koi composited from sets of imagetemplates according to the invention;

FIG. 2 is a table of koi Mendelian gene pairs according to theinvention;

FIG. 3 is an image of koi lineage;

FIG. 4 a is a front view of a cellular phone with an I/O interfaceaccording to the invention;

FIG. 4 b is a block diagram of a cellular phone according to theinvention;

FIG. 5 is table of linear menu to be mapped to a keypad arrangementaccording to the invention;

FIG. 6 is a menu arrangement for a deletion action according to theinvention;

FIG. 7 is a menu arrangement for entering a telephone number;

FIG. 8 is a menu for panning a virtual pond according to the invention;

FIG. 9 a is a flow diagram of a method for compositing sets of koitemplates images according to the invention;

FIG. 9 b is a block diagram of a stack of composited image templates;

FIG. 9 c is a flow diagram of a method for scaling composited images;

FIG. 10 is a matrix of genes for determining colors of koi;

FIG. 11 a is an image of a stored pattern;

FIGS. 11 b–d are three pattern variations derived from the storedpattern shown in FIG. 11 a;

FIG. 12 a is the same stored pattern shown in FIG. 11 a.

FIGS. 12 b–d are three edge pattern variations derived from the patternshown in FIG. 12 a;

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing image templates of fish texture;

FIG. 14 shows three variations of a head image template; and

FIG. 15 shows composited foreground image templates.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The invention provides toy software for cellular telephones (cellphones) that mimics the aesthetically pleasing qualities of the popularJapanese hobby of breeding ornamental fish (koi) as well as real-worldMendelian genetics. Unlike most goal oriented games, the virtual fishbreeding toy according to the invention is open-ended and can be playedby a sole participant at any time, and at irregular intervals, e.g.,while commuting, or otherwise waiting. However, the ability to trade koiwith other players via messages adds an important social element to thetoy. In addition, the visualization of the toy is done by compositingrelatively simple image from sets of image templates. Thus, the toy doesnot require a lot of memory for complex graphics models or a high powerrendering engine or processor as in many prior art computerized toys andgames.

FIG. 1 a shows a real koi, and FIGS. 1 b–d show images of three digi-koigenerated by compositing from sets of image templates stored in thecellular phone based toy according to the invention. In all images,female koi (XY) face right, and male koi (XX) face left.

Koi Toy Experience

Unlike computer games, the digi-koi toy does not have an intrinsic goal.Instead, the primary motivation for playing is aesthetic pleasure, i.e.,the typical player just wants to breed beautiful digi-koi. And, likereal-world koi, digi-koi can breed year long. As an advantage of theinvention, the happy digi-koi owner does not have to deal with messyponds, algae, feeding schedules, dangerous predators, broken pumps, andother less rewarding tasks involved in real koi breeding.

Possible koi varieties that can be bred include the Kohaku, which is akoi with a white body and red accent pattern on the back. This isprobably the most popular variety of koi. The Tashio Sanke is atri-colored koi with a white body with a red pattern and black accentson the back, see FIG. 1 a. The Showa Sanke is a tri-colored koi with ablack body with red and white accents on the back. The Bekko and Utsuriare non-metallic koi with black on White, Red, or Yellow body. The Asagiis also a non-metallic koi with a bluish reticulated, netlike scales ontop, and a red belly. The Shusui is the same as the Asagi except it hasDoitsu scales. The Tancho is a koi with a red spot on the top of itshead, and no red on its body. The Tancho Kohaku is a white koi with ared spot on its head, see FIG. 1 d, while the Tancho Sanke is a Sankewith a red spot on its head and no red on the rest of its body, and theTancho Showa is a Showa with a red spot on its head and no red on itsbody.

In solo play, the player browses a virtual pond of digi-koi to locatepromising breeding stock, see FIG. 8. Here, the “pond” is all koimaintained by one cell phone. The player may also want to consider theparents, grandparents, and siblings of a candidate pair of digi-koi tobreed to determine if the pair has desirable and complementary genes.Even with well-selected parents, the randomness of the genetic selectionaccording to the invention may produce many offspring that do notexhibit specific visual characteristics desired by the player. However,as for real koi breeding, skilful culling of unwanted koi is animportant task, see Fletcher “The Ultimate Koi,” New York: Howell BookHouse, 1995, and Axelrod et al., “The Completely Illustrated Guide toKoi for Your Pond,” TFH Publications; ISBN: 079380597X; 3rd edition,September 1996.

A player can augment the gene pool in their pond by acquiring differentdigi-koi from other players. The trading mechanism sends digi-kois fromone pond to another pond by cellular short messaging service (SMS), orother communication protocols. The ponds are identified by telephonenumbers, see FIG. 7. The trading process can be complex, in a socialsense, and adds significant richness to playing with the toy, because,like in the real world, the aesthetic value of a digi-koi can be hard toassess, and like real life, the breeding process has someunpredictability.

One factor that affects the digi-koi's breeding is age. To avoidtraumatizing players, digi-koi do not die unless they are culled.However, digi-koi can only mate a prescribed number of times to avoidproliferation of particular set of genes. The other main factoraffecting the value of a digi-koi is lineage.

In addition to moving a digi-koi between cell phone ponds, the tradingmechanism allows for digi-koi to be sent to other digital devices. Inthis way, digi-koi can be displayed on WWW pages, rendered in 3D on a PCor game console, and sent to a manufacturer to provide a blueprint forthe manufacturing of a stuffed animal koi or tie.

Koi Genetic Simulation

Each digi-Koi is modeled according a set of gene pairs that adhere tobasic diploid Mendelian genetics. Over 6 trillion unique geneticcombinations or genotypes, and over 100 billion unique appearances orphenotypes are possible with the genetic evolution according to theinvention. While the invention does not exactly match every subtlety ofkoi breeding, it does simulate many of the Mendelian properties ofreal-world genetics. Digi-koi genes exist in allelic pairs, and thebehavior of these pairs dictates the physical representation of the koi.

Gene Pairs

FIG. 2 shows a set 200 of sixteen koi Mendelian gene pairs 201 that isused to model each digi-koi. It should be understood, that genes forother characteristics can be incorporated in the set 200. Associatedwith each pair are phenotypes (appearances) 202, genotypes (traits) 203,and dominance characteristic 204. The dominance characteristics includedominant, co-dominant, semi-dominant, recessive, and polygeniccharacteristics. With co-dominance, such as color, a koi with genes forboth yellow and blue colored scales exhibits green scales. Semi-dominantgene pairs, in which every unique genotype has its own phenotype, arepresent as well. For example, a koi with two genes for large fins haslarge fins, a koi with two genes for small fins has small fins, and akoi with a gene for large fins and a gene for small fins hasmedium-sized fins.

Genes for pattern density use a 7-bit polygenic approximation thatexhibits typical breeding characteristics. For example, a denselypatterned father mating with a lightly patterned mother produces mediumpatterned offspring. Finally, many gene pairs are epistatic to othergenes pairs. Epistasis is a form of interaction between non-allelicgenes in which one combination of such genes has a dominant effect overother combinations, i.e., they mask the presentation of the other gene.For example, a black base color hides the appearance of black stripes.

When a player breeds two koi, each koi contributes one gene from eachpair of genes in the set to the set modeling their offspring. One geneis selected randomly from the pair. Genes are passed on to the offspringaccording to Mendel's law of independent assortment.

In a preferred, embodiment, each set of genes is stored as a vector ofelements, where the vector elements control the stacked compositing ofthe sets of image templates as described below.

As shown in FIG. 3, the digi-koi software toy includes a lineage toolfor viewing a koi's ancestors, because players cannot view genesdirectly. The lineage can be stored in a tree-like data structure in aportion of the memory of the cell phone.

The selected koi 301 exhibits a phenotype for a recessive trait, e.g.,lustrous shiny scales indicated by its glow 302 around the periphery ofthe koi. One can see that neither of the parents 303 exhibited thistrait, therefore, both parents must be carriers of this recessive gene.When one looks at the grandparents, one sees that both of the koi'sgrandmothers 304 have shiny scales. Both grandmothers have passed onthis gene to their children 303, who both passed it on to the malegrandchild koi 301. By examining the ancestors and appearance of a koi,a player gains an understanding of its genetics, and can then betterselect koi for breeding.

The User Interface

The invention also provides an input/output (I/O interface that isspecifically designed for cellular telephones. The I/O interfaceaccommodates two primary interface functions, i.e., action selection andbrowsing.

FIG. 4 a shows a cellular telephone 400 used with the invention. Thetelephone includes a numeric keypad 401 and a display 402. The keys arethe numbers 0–9, and * and #. The display shows a menu 600 spatiallyarranged to match the layout of the keypad 401.

FIG. 4 b shows a block diagram of the cell phone according to theinvention. The phone includes an antenna 410 coupled to a transceiver420. The transceiver 420 is connected to a transmit circuit 440 and areceive circuit 450. Overall operation is managed by a control processor430, which also controls the key pad 401, the display 402, and a speaker403 and a microphone 404. The phone also includes DSP, A/D, D/A, andcodec circuits, not shown.

A memory 460 is connected to the control processor 430. The memory caninclude ROM, RAM and flash memories. A portion of the memory isallocated as an image buffer 461, a screen buffer 462, and a vectorbuffer (V) 463. The image buffer 461 is used to build intermediateimage, while the screen buffer 462 reflects what is shown on the display402. The two buffers can be the same size, corresponding to the numberof pixels on the display 402. The memory also stored the vectors 463that control the compositing of koi images. The memory also stores thesets of template images used to produce the digi-koi according to theinvention.

The processes described herein are also stored in the memory 460 andexecute in the control processor 430, e.g., a StronArm™ classmicroprocessor.

Most conventional computer and cell phone applications utilize linearmenus 500, see FIG. 5, to issue commands. The items in a menu arepresented vertically, as they would be in a pull-down menu on a desktopcomputer. Pull-down menus were originally designed to be used with amouse or similar pointing device, an input mechanism these cell phoneslack. Linear menu items are either selected by scrolling up and down orby pressing the key on the keypad that corresponds to the number in thelinear menu entry. Because the keys on the cell phone keypad are notlaid out in a vertical fashion, a user must translate menu items fromlinear menu space into two-dimensional keypad space before making aselection.

With the input output interface according to the invention, the spatialarrangement of a displayed menu 600 items is according to keypadcoordinates, as shown in greater detail in FIG. 6. For menus thatcontain more than nine or twelve commands, hierarchical menus are used.A menu item's sub-commands fill the remaining eight regions uponselection of the parent. The player user issues commands nested within amenu by using a sequence of keystrokes.

One of the benefits of the menu arrangement according to the inventionis that common operations are performed via short, easy-to-remembernumber sequences. For example, from the pond-browsing mode the numbersequence 5-7-4 transitions to the action-selection menu, chooses thedeletion action, see FIG. 7, confirms the deletion and returns to thepond-browsing menu. The sequence 5-4-5 transitions from pond browsing,selects a parent, and transitions back to pond browsing.

Tasks such as these, that require more than one step, leverage theplayer's procedural memory: common operations become second nature.

Browsing the Virtual Pond via Discrete Panning with Partial Context

Browsing a virtual pond of digi-koi presents another problem. Thevirtual pond is arranged as a grid, in which each cell is either emptyor occupied by a single digi-koi. A pan-and-zoom approach to browsing isnot possible because the cell phone's CPU is not powerful enough tosupport continuous, animated navigation of the grid. A discrete versionof panning, in which the grid is traversed one whole cell at a time, canleave the user disoriented because there are no visual cues for locationwithin the grid.

Our solution is a modification of the discrete-panning metaphor in whichneighboring cells are partially visible. Discrete panning with partialcontext gives the user a sense of location while browsing the grid.Panning a virtual pond is achieved via the keypad, e.g., key 2 moves tothe cell directly above, and key 3 moves diagonally up and to the right.Key 5 is used to switch to the action-selection selection menu. As shownin FIG. 8, parts of neighboring cells are shown to provide some contextwithin the pond.

Compositing Images of the Koi

The memory limitations of a cell phone preclude storing the billions ofunique possible koi images. Processor limitations preclude the use of arendering engine to generate images from stored models. Therefore, koisare stored in the cell phone memory as sets of 68-bit gene sequences,see FIG. 2. Images of the koi are visualized by compositing a smallnumber of stored sets of image templates, in ways dictated by the genesequence, i.e., sets 200. The compositing according to the inventionstacks image templates on top of each other.

The steps 900 taken to composite the koi image from the sets of imagetemplates are detailed in FIGS. 9 a. FIG. 9 b shows how selected imagetemplates are stacked on top of each other. The manner in whichtemplates are modified and stacked is controlled by the vectors thatencode the sets of gene pairs for each koi. It should be understood thatadditional steps for other visible characteristics can be incorporatedinto this compositing sequence. Koi images are composited into the imagebuffer 461.

The first step 910 fills a blank image 901 with a base (background)color 902 of the koi. The background color is derived from the basecolor gene pair of the set 200, see FIG. 2. It should be understood thatsetting all pixels in an image buffer to a single color is an extremelysimple operation. In effect, here, the template is the color gene pair.

FIG. 10 shows a matrix 1000 of the resulting background colors for allpossible gene pairs. For example, a koi with one gene for a yellowbackground 1001 and the other gene for a blue background 1002 has agreen color 1003. It should be understood that additional colors can beadded to this matrix.

The next step 920 composites the shape of the primary pattern 903. Thekoi's primary pattern shape gene pair determines which one of a set ofpatterns image templates is used to composite the primary pattern. FIG.11 a shows one such primary pattern image template. The primary patternis one image template used by the invention. The pixels in the primarypattern are assigned gray-scale values. For example, pixels 1101 nearthe edge of the pattern have a lighter color than pixels 1002 in themiddle of the pattern.

The gene for the density of the primary pattern 904 maps to a pixelthreshold intensity value that is used during the compositing of theshape of the primary pattern. All pixels having a darker (greater) thanintensity than this threshold value are retained, and all pixels lighter(less) than this value are ignored. FIGS. 11 b, 11 c, and 11 d showthree possible primary patterns shapes all derived from the singleprototype pattern shown in 11 a, using increasing thresholds from leftto right. It should be understood that thresholding pixels intensity inan image buffer can be done with a small set of instructions.

The next step 930, composites the edge 905 of the primary pattern. Asshown in FIG. 12 a, the edges are also derived from the primary shapepattern. However, this time only pixels within a small range of thethreshold value are composited. FIGS. 12 b, 12 c, and 12 d show threepossible primary pattern edges all derived from the pattern shown in 12a.

Compositing the head pattern 906 and secondary pattern 908, steps 940and 960, into the image buffer works in the same way as for the primarypattern, however, a different gene pairs and a different partial imageis used. Compositing 950 the edge 907 of the head pattern also works ina similar way.

Next, texture 911 is composited 970 using the genes for the size of thehead, body, tail, and fins. FIG. 13 shows a complete texture that is fora koi that is composited from a set of partial images for the head 1301,fins 1302, body 1303, and tail 1304. FIG. 14 shows three texture imagetemplates of with variations of the head size. It should be noted thatthe texture is blended with pixels already in the image buffer. This canbe done by a multiply operation, instead of an overwrite as for theother stacked compositing steps.

Finally, the foreground 912, as shown in FIG. 15, is composited 980 intothe image buffer. Genes for the size of the head, body, tail, and finsdetermine which partial foreground images make up the head foreground1501, fin foreground 1402, body foreground 1403, and tail foreground1404. This stacked compositing produces the koi image 909. Other visualfeatures, such as the lightning like shape, shininess can be added whereappropriate.

As shown in FIG. 9 c, the koi image 909 in the image buffer can scaled991 to some other size. For example, to reduce the image to half itssize, every other pixel is selected. After, scaling, the image can betranslated 992 to place it at the desired (x, y) location. The scalingcan include orientation, for example, positioning the koi according tothe sex gene. The final image can then be copied 993 to the screenbuffer. As final step, the screen buffer can be annotated 994 to overlayany additional text, such as sex markers, koi names, and telephonenumbers. The above steps can be repeated depending on the number of koisthat need to be displayed.

This invention is described using specific terms and examples. It is tobe understood that various other adaptations and modifications may bemade within the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, it is theobject of the appended claims to cover all such variations andmodifications as come within the true spirit and scope of the invention.

1. A cellular telephone breeding toy comprising: a first memory of thecellular telephone configured to store a plurality of vectors, eachvector representing genetic traits of a corresponding breedable object,the genetic traits including a set of gene pairs associated withphenotypes, genotypes, and dominance characteristics of thecorresponding breedable object; a second memory of the cellulartelephone configured to store a plurality of sets of image templates,there being at least one element of each vector associated with eachimage template; input means for selecting a first one of the pluralityof vectors associated with a first corresponding breedable object and asecond one of the plurality of vectors associated with a secondbreedable object; means for combining, according to the genetic traits,the first one of the plurality of vectors and the second one of theplurality of vectors into genetics traits of a third breedable object;means for storing the genetic traits of the third breedable object asone of the vectors in the first memory; processor means for compositingselected ones of the image templates according to the genetic traits ofthe third breedable object, the compositing stacking the selected imagetemplates in an image buffer of the memory in a predetermined order; anda screen buffer coupled to the image buffer to render an image of thethird breedable object according to the genetic traits on a display ofthe cellular telephone.
 2. The cellular telephone breeding toy of claim1 further comprising; third memory storing a lineage of the thirdbreedable object; and means for displaying ancestors of the thirdbreedable object.
 3. The cellular telephone breeding toy of claim 1wherein the genetic traits include gender, size, color, and patterns. 4.The cellular telephone breeding toy of claim 1 wherein the set of genepairs is associated with phenotypes, genotypes, and dominancecharacteristic of each corresponding breedable object.
 5. The cellulartelephone breeding toy of claim 1 wherein the dominance characteristicsinclude dominant, co-dominant, semi-dominant, recessive, and polygeniccharacteristics.
 6. The cellular telephone breeding toy of claim 1wherein the genetic traits are combined randomly.
 7. The cellulartelephone breeding toy of claim 1 wherein the genetic traits represent abackground color, primary pattern, head pattern, secondary pattern,texture, of each corresponding breedable object.
 8. The cellulartelephone breeding toy of claim 1 wherein a particular genetic trait canonly be combined a predetermined number of times.
 9. The cellulartelephone breeding toy of claim 1 further comprising: means forcommunicating selected genetic traits with another cellular telephone.10. The cellular telephone breeding toy of claim 1 wherein eachbreedable object is a virtual fish.
 11. The cellular telephone breedingtoy of claim 10 further comprising: means for displaying the virtualfish in a virtual pond.
 12. The cellular telephone breeding toy of claim10 further comprising: means for generating a physical object from theimage of the corresponding breedable object.